In the space of a few hours I went from euphoria to despair. As usual I over exaggerate. Last night the team of which I was a member won the quiz held in our village hall. We trounced our nearest rivals by a single point to carry home the spoils. Still on a high this morning I sat at my laptop computer waiting for the clock to tick over to 9.00 – the moment that the booking page for tickets for next year’s Glastonbury Festival went live. I clicked the link and was immediately directed to a holding page that automatically refreshed every 20 seconds, waiting for a slot in the queue to open up and allow me access to the holy grail that is the page where you enter your registration details and pay your deposit. So long has it been since I saw that page that I wonder if it actually exists. There followed an hour of watching that dratted holding page refresh, until at 10.00 news came through that all tickets had now sold, all 210,000! When I first started going to the festival it was pretty straightforward getting a ticket, but since 2011 I have managed it only once (2017), such is the demand. Oh well, I will subject myself to the same ritual this time next year, probably with the same end result.

I have uninvited guests in the greenhouse. At the beginning of last week I noticed some very fresh earth workings amongst the roots of one of the fig trees. There were a couple of holes – one under the tree and another under a water butt. There was also digging around the base of a large lantern cloche that sits on that border. On lifting the lid of the cloche I discovered a large cache of figs in various stages of decomposition that had been stashed there. The holes are rat sized, but I suspect that the culprits are more likely to be squirrels, because the fig collection is more typical of their behaviour. I have baited a live trap and this morning I set up my trail cam to try to capture evidence of my nocturnal visitors. I will report back next week.

While at the garden this morning setting up the camera we walked Nellie through the woods. She loves it down there, and was overjoyed to find the skull of a deer to roll on! Back at the garden I had a very close encounter with a Goldcrest that alighted on a branch not more than a metre away from my head. They are such beautiful tiny birds – even smaller than a Wren.

The purple sprouting broccoli is taking a break, but there are some January King cabbages alongside kale, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower. Jacket potatoes are back, and complete a formidable line-up of spuds – Cara, Marfona and Pink Fir Apple. Carrots, parsnips, swede, sweet potatoes, onions, beetroot, turnips and leeks are your root veg options. After a fantastic season last year sadly my celeriac crop was a failure this time around, I will see if I can source some from other organic growers. There are orange Uchiki Kuri squash, and some smaller Butternuts, mostly in the weight range 650g-750g. Oranges are now from Sicily and are thinner skinned and are more juicy than the Spanish ones. Apples are Herefordshire Russet again this week.

I mentioned last week the health scare that the Estate Manager of Moyns Park had. It was confirmed that he did indeed have a stroke. He spent a couple of nights in hospital before being fitted with a heart monitor to gather data that will influence an ongoing treatment plan. He has been resting at home and has felt well enough to come for a chat on a couple of occasions, so hopefully his recovery will continue smoothly.

Christmas is only 5 weeks away. Lawks-a-mussy that’s come round again quickly. It will be very useful if you could let me know if you are not going to need a delivery for the annual bloat-fest, as it will assist my planning. I will confirm this closer to the time, but just to give you forward notice, deliveries will be as normal – so on Thursday 21st for local customers, and on Friday 22nd for others. I will be at the farmers’ market at Wyken on Saturday 23rd, so orders can be collected from there too. There will be no deliveries in the week between Christmas and New Year.

It looks like we are in for a spell of fairly benign weather in the week ahead, which will hopefully let the ground dry out a bit, enabling me to have a bit of a tidy up of some of the beds. At some point soon I will need to make a start on pruning in the orchard – a big job this year because I didn’t get as much done last winter as I should have. I don’t mind it as a job, it’s dealing with the resulting prunings that puts me off. Maybe I should plan a wassailing party in the New Year where guests bring a pruning saw rather than a bottle.

Right, I’m off look at my old Glastonbury photo albums, reminiscing wistfully about those halcyon days of wading through 6 inch thick mud and shivering in a damp sleeping bag. The photo above was what we woke up to on the Friday morning in 2005 following an overnight deluge. Aah, those were the days.

Phil